Saturday, December 14, 2013

Santa Should Be the Only One with Unlimited Spying Powers

We
now know that this holiday season, our private communications aren't as
private as we thought. While we're calling, texting, emailing, and
visiting our friends and loved ones, the NSA is tuning in and collecting
massive amounts of data on millions of Americans.

Thanks to the revelations from Edward Snowden, each week we get new proof that the NSA has vastly overstepped its authority.

The
good news is that the tide is turning in the fight to rein in all this
runaway surveillance. Right now, there is legislation pending in the
House and Senate that would go a long way to stopping the worst of the
NSA's excesses. So we need to turn up the pressure on Congress, which
blindly gave the NSA too much spying power in the first place.

If
we're going to get past this last hurdle, we need to stand together and
send our representatives in Washington a crystal clear message:
Americans stand opposed to this blatant abuse of power.

Sign the petition and let's push Congress to get in gear to end the secret surveillance state now.

https://www.aclu.org/secure/stopnsa?sid=1804544

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Urgent Update on Lynne Stewart

“HELP BRING ME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS”a life and death Appeal from renowned people’s attorney Lynne Stewart.

“I
need to ask once again for your assistance in forcing the Bureau of
Prisons to grant my Compassionate Release. They have been stonewalling
since August and my life expectancy, as per my cancer doctor, is down to
12 months. They know that I am fully qualified and that over 40,000
people have signed-on to force them to do the right thing, which is to
let me go home to my family and to receive advanced care in New York
City.

“Yet they refuse to act. While this is entirely within the
range of their politics and their cruelty to hold political prisoners
until we have days to live before releasing us – witness Herman Wallace
of Angola and Marilyn Buck – we are fighting not to permit this and call
for a BIG push.”

Lynne Stewart, FMC Carswell

Take Action
between now and the New Year. Telephone and send emails or other
messages to Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr.
and Attorney General Eric Holder.

LET US CREATE A TIDAL WAVE OF EFFORT INTERNATIONALLY.Together, we can prevent the bureaucratic murder of Lynne Stewart.

Notes:

In
a new 237-page report entitled “A Living Death,” the American Civil
Liberties Union documents unconstitutional practices permeating federal
and state prisons in the United States.

Focused on life
imprisonment without parole for minor offenses, the ACLU details
conditions of 3,278 individual prisoners whose denial of release is
deemed “a flagrant violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and
unusual punishment” occurring on an increasing scale.

The ACLU
labels the deliberate stonewalling as “willful,” a touchstone of Federal
Bureau of Prisons and Department of Justice arrogance.

These
conclusions corroborate the findings of Human Rights Watch in 2012:
“The Answer is ‘No’: Too Little Compassionate Release in U.S. Prisons.”
The
Report is definitive in exposing arbitrary and illegal conduct that
infuses every facet of the treatment accorded Lynne Stewart:

“…the
Bureau has usurped the role of the courts. In fact, it is fair to say
the jailers are acting as judges. Congress intended the sentencing
judge, not the BOP to determine whether a prisoner should receive a
sentence reduction.”

Lynne Stewart’s medical findings show less than twelve months to live as stipulated by her oncologist at FMC Carswell.

The
Federal Bureau Prisons has failed to file the legally required motion,
declaring instead that the matter lies “with the Department of Justice.”

Write to Lynne Stewart at:

Lynne Stewart #53504-054

Unit 2N, Federal Medical Center, Carswell

P.O. Box 27137

Fort Worth, TX76127

Write to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at:

Lynne Stewart Defense Committee

1070 Dean Street

Brooklyn, New York 11216

For further information: 718-789-0558
or 917-853-9759

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Make a donation today:

https://npo.justgive.org/nonprofits/donate.jsp?ein=94-2168838

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

PVT Chelsea Manning tells TIME Magazine what she's thankful for this year

For
their special Thanksgiving edition, TIME Magazine asked WikiLeaks
whistleblower PVT Chelsea Manning what she's thankful for this year.
Her answer was published alongside those from Michelle Obama, Joe Biden,
and 14 other well-known public figures. Her response, while
demonstrating wisdom beyond her years, is one that many people who work
for the betterment of society will appreciate:

"I’m
usually hesitant to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. After all, the Puritans
of the Massachusetts Bay Colony systematically terrorized and
slaughtered the very same Pequot tribe that assisted the first English
refugees to arrive at Plymouth Rock. So, perhaps ironically, I’m
thankful that I know that, and I’m also thankful that there are people
who seek out, and usually find, such truths. I’m thankful for people
who, even surrounded by millions of Americans eating turkey during
regularly scheduled commercial breaks in the Green Bay and Detroit
football game; who, despite having been taught, often as early as five
and six years old, that the “helpful natives” selflessly assisted the
“poor helpless Pilgrims” and lived happily ever after, dare to ask
probing, even dangerous, questions.
Such people are often nameless
and humble, yet no less courageous. Whether carpenters of welders;
retail clerks or bank managers; artists or lawyers, they dare to ask
tough questions, and seek out the truth, even when the answers they find
might not be easy to live with.

I’m also grateful for
having social and human justice pioneers who lead through action, and by
example, as opposed to directing or commanding other people to take
action. Often, the achievements of such people transcend political,
cultural, and generational boundaries. Unfortunately, such remarkable
people often risk their reputations, their livelihood, and, all too
often, even their lives.

Malcolm X began to openly
embrace the idea, after an awakening during his travels to the Middle
East and Africa, of an international and unifying effort to achieve
equality, and was murdered after a tough, yearlong defection from the
Nation of Islam. Martin Luther King Jr., after choosing to embrace the
struggles of striking sanitation workers in Memphis over lobbying in
Washington, D.C., was murdered by an escaped convict seeking fame and
respect from white Southerners. Harvey Milk, the first openly gay
politician in the U.S., was murdered by a jealous former colleague.
These are only examples; I wouldn’t dare to make a claim that they
represent an exhaustive list of remarkable pioneers of social justice
and equality—certainly many if not the vast majority are unsung and,
sadly, forgotten.

So, this year, and every year, I’m
thankful for such people, and I’m thankful that one day—perhaps not
tomorrow—because of the accomplishments of such truth-seekers and human
rights pioneers, we can live together on this tiny “pale blue dot” of a
planet and stop looking inward, at each other, but rather outward, into
the space beyond this planet and the future of all of humanity.

For
those who don't already know, PVT Chelsea Manning grew up in a
conservative community in the Midwest. She suffered a dysfunctional
home life, and she was bullied at school for being gay. She was even
homeless for a period, working two part-time jobs to get by. She
dreamed of one day going to college, and for this reason joined the Army
at the age of 19. A few years later she realized she was not gay, but
transgender; since she was in the Army, her only option was to hide her
identity while working 14 hour days in a war zone. Through all these
obstacles, she has remained committed to educating herself, asking the
hard questions, and taking risks in the name of helping other people.

This
year, we give thanks for PVT Manning's humanist idealism, her bravery,
and her unyielding belief that through the work of dedicated individuals
our society can and will be made more just. It is not only her
actions, but also her unique individualism, that has inspired thousands
of people around the world to action. We hope you'll join us in showing
thanks for Chelsea by making a gift to ensure her legal appeals process
is fully funded. 35 years is far too harsh a punishment for showing
the public the truth.

Donate to Support the Legal Appeals

So
far we've raised just over $16,000 of the $40,000 needed. Please help
us meet our goal by Chelsea's birthday on December 17th.

Pvt. Chelsea Manning's fourth birthday in prison

“When
I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for
my country and a sense of duty to others.”-Pvt. Manning

On December 17, Private Chelsea Manning will turn 26.
It will be the fourth birthday this young Army whistle-blower has spent in prison.

Thanks to this brave soldier’s heroic actions, the public learned the following startling truths:

Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

“When I
chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my
country and a sense of duty to others.”-Pvt. Manning

While
some of these documents may demonstrate how much work lies ahead in
terms of securing international peace and justice, their release changed
the world for the better.
Private Manning’s actions showed people everywhere how citizens can use
the Internet to hold their governments accountable.

In Chelsea’s request for pardon from President Obama, she wrote:

“As the late Howard Zinn once said, ‘There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.’

Private Manning’s brave actions have set an example for us all.

Here are three important ways you can support Chelsea on her birthday:

Please note that regular letter paper must be used, as cardstock will be turned away.
However, you can easily print out your own card by searching for “free birthday templates” online.

3. Hold a
party with friends and neighbors to raise money for Chelsea’s legal
defense.
Whether a dinner party, cocktail party or concert, bringing people
together for an evening of education and socializing is a great way to
kindle some social consciousness and holiday spirit.
On each person's way out the door, you can ask them to add a personal
message on a joint birthday letter to Chelsea.
If you want your party to be public, send information about your event
to owen@bradleymanning.org

Help us continue to cover 100% of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.

1) New Film, ‘Out of the Furnace,’ Accused of Stereotyping Ramapough Indians
By
COREY KILGANNON
December 11, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/nyregion/new-film-out-of-the-furnace-accused-of-stereotyping-ramapough-indians.html?ref=nyregion
2) Prison Memoir of a Black Man in the 1850s
By
JULIE BOSMAN

1) New Film, ‘Out of the Furnace,’ Accused of Stereotyping Ramapough Indians
By
COREY KILGANNON
December 11, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/nyregion/new-film-out-of-the-furnace-accused-of-stereotyping-ramapough-indians.html?ref=nyregion

MAHWAH, N.J. — The past week has been unsettling for the
Ramapough Mountain Indians, who live on this northern stretch of the
Appalachian Mountains that overlooks the Manhattan skyline and wealthy
parts of Bergen County. The new movie “Out of the Furnace,” featuring a
star-studded cast that includes Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson, also
features numerous negative references to the Ramapoughs. They include a
fight-ring subplot.

Keith Van Dunk, 27, a member of the tribe,
took a break from feeding the chickens at his father’s house up on Stag
Hill here on Sunday morning and gestured at the surrounding woods.

“You see any fight ring up here?” he said. “Absolutely not.”

Tribal leaders and local elected officials held a news conference last
week, speaking out against a film that they claim portrays them as
trashy backwoods bumpkins involved in drugs and violence. One Ramapough
henchman in the movie even bears Mr. Van Dunk’s last name.

The
references constitute a “hate crime” that has “stained the community and
stirred up animus” by increasing marginalization and stigmatization,
said the Ramapoughs’ chief, Dwaine C. Perry, 66, in an interview.

In the past few days, he said, there had been several instances of
Ramapough students in local high schools being picked on by classmates
who had seen the film, including one case in which a teacher had to
intervene.

At a showing of the movie last weekend, someone
hurled slurs at a Ramapough woman in the theater, he said. There was
also a fight at a local mall that tribal members said was stirred up by
the film.

“The film contains ugly stereotypes that stain you
for life,” Chief Perry said. “The undertones are racist and personal.
It’s a hate crime when you look at the psychological impact on the
kids.”

Contacted for comment, the film’s production company,
Relativity Media, released a statement saying that the film is “entirely
fictional” and not “based upon any particular person or group of
people.”

“As is the case with most films, the filmmakers
conducted research and drew upon their own personal life experiences in
creating an original screenplay, and the story and the characters are
entirely fictional,” the statement read.

Scott Cooper, who
directed the film and co-wrote the script, was unavailable for comment
Wednesday night. But a Relativity Media spokesman said that John
Fetterman, mayor of Braddock, Pa. — the other main setting in the film —
had nothing but praise for the way the movie portrayed Braddock. Mr.
Fetterman called it a respectful depiction that was “eloquent, forceful
and honest,” in a guest column he wrote for Variety magazine.

Several characters in the film have last names that are prevalent
Ramapough names, including De Groat and Mann. The film was not shot in
the area, but the Bergen County Police Department is portrayed as the
local authority.

Mr. Van Dunk said he refused to buy a ticket
to the film, but he consulted the IMDB website and saw that several cast
members were listed as “Jackson White.”

The term “Jackson
White” is a slur used by outsiders to deride the Ramapoughs, Mr. Van
Dunk said, referencing the tribe’s descent from Native Americans, whites
and runaway slaves who settled in the mountains in the late 18th
century. The term dredges up decades of a long, ugly history of
discrimination and marginalization.

“To me, it’s like calling a
black person the N-word, and my father is black,” said Mr. Van Dunk,
who works for a moving company in Hackensack. “In high school, kids
would call me a Jackson White in the hallway, and if I stuck up for
myself, they’d say I’m living up to the stereotype.”

Before the
opening of the film, which was the third-grossing film in the country
last weekend, The New York Post published an article saying that it
depicts the Ramapoughs as “New Jersey hillbillies.” The article
characterized tribe members as unsophisticated, intermarrying types who
are ridiculed, who hunt and eat squirrels, and who drive all-terrain
vehicles on dirt roads.

“After reading in The Post about the
Ramapoughs being a bunch of hillbillies eating squirrels, I drove into
Manhattan the first night it opened to see the film for myself,” said
Mahwah Mayor William C. Laforet. He added that a mine depicted in the
film appears to be modeled on the local Abex foundry, now shuttered.

“There are numerous connections, factual and implied, and now the
producers are backpedaling and saying it’s fictional,” Mr. Laforet said.
“It’s unfair to the folks on the mountain to resurrect those
stereotypes. It’s a disgraceful depiction of that community.”

The mayor also said he feared the fight-club element would lead
teenagers to test Ramapough children. Local school officials have been
“keenly sensitive” to watching for discrimination against students from
Ramapough families in the wake of the film, he said, stepping up what
has already been a “zero tolerance policy” in recent years regarding
discrimination against Ramapough children.

The mayor said he
feared the film could add to the longstanding problem of young people
driving to Mahwah to take joy rides on the roads of Stag Mountain.

“It’s going to bring outsiders to the mountain looking for some Wild
West,” he said. “This isn’t the backwoods of Kentucky — it’s within
eyeshot of New York City.”

The Ramapough people trace their
roots back thousands of years to the Lenape tribe. Now there are perhaps
5,000 members living in mountainous areas around the border with New
York.

For a group long known as “mountain people,” the film is
another in a long line of indignities, which include a lack of federal
recognition as a tribe, despite gaining official recognition decades ago
from New York and New Jersey.

There was the humiliation a few
years back of becoming the butt of late-night jokes, after the
Ramapoughs’ practice of hunting and eating squirrels drew governmental
warnings regarding lead levels in squirrels at a local Superfund site.
Then there was the unusually high level of health problems that tribal
members connected to toxin dumping by the Ford Motor Company. When the
tribe wanted to apply for a casino permit, even Donald Trump joined the
fight against it.

Regarding the influx of joy riders, Elmore Wilson, a tribal member who lives on Stag Hill, said they had been on the increase.

“One of them just busted my windshield,” said Mr. Wilson, 54, as he
stood on his front lawn on Sunday with his son, Michael Wilson, 24, near
the tribal headquarters. Elmore Wilson, a security guard at Ramapo
College, said he sat Michael down years ago and gave him the Ramapough
facts of life.

“I told him, ‘This is what you’re going to be
facing because of where we live,’ ” he recounted. “You’re going to hear
we’re a bunch of inbreds, all kinds of stuff. You just got to let it
roll off your back.”

Nicole Ginsburg, 21, who works the counter
at Jersey Boys pizza parlor at the foot of Stag Hill, said some local
residents made fun of the Ramapough members as banjo-playing
hillbillies.

“Some of the Mahwah kids call them inbred,” she
said. “One kid said, ‘Oh, you don’t want to bump into a Jackson White up
there.’ ”

As for Mr. Van Dunk, before returning to his
chickens, he said he was rethinking his future. “Right now, my pride
keeps me here, but I guess I’ll have to move as my kids get older,” he
said. “I don’t want them growing up with people looking at them funny.”

Years
ago, a rare-books dealer browsing at an estate sale in Rochester came
across an unusual manuscript, dated 1858. The family selling it said
little about where it had been for the last 150 years. It appeared never
to have left upstate New York.

Scholars now believe that the
mystery manuscript is the first recovered memoir written in prison by an
African-American, a discovery that Yale University says it made after
authenticating the document and acquiring it for its Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The 304-page memoir, titled “The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, or the Inmate of a Gloomy Prison,” describes the experiences of the author, Austin Reed, from the 1830s to the 1850s in a prison in upstate New York.

Caleb Smith,
a professor of English at Yale who has written extensively about
imprisonment, said he believed the manuscript to be authentic. Reed’s
account was corroborated through newspaper articles, court records and
prison files, with help from Christine McKay, an archivist and
researcher who also works for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture in Manhattan.

“It’s still a very unusual thing for us
to find any previously unknown document from this period by an
African-American writer,” Mr. Smith said. “From a literary point of
view, I think there’s no other voice in American literature like the
voice of this penitentiary narrative, which has a very lyrical quality.
And from a historical perspective, what makes this so fascinating at
this moment is the deep connection between the history of slavery and
the history of incarceration.”

Nancy Kuhl, a curator at the
Beineke library, said the manuscript “significantly enriches the canon
of 19th-century African-American literature and deepens our
understanding of all 19th-century America.”

Reed is believed to
have been born a free man near Rochester. As a young man, according to
Yale’s research, he was sent to the New York House of Refuge, a juvenile
reform school in Manhattan, where he learned to read and write. By the
1830s, a string of thefts resulted in his incarceration in a state
prison in Auburn, now known as the Auburn Correctional Facility, which
was built in 1816.

The manuscript, written with the dramatic
flair of a natural storyteller but in unpolished English, with
grammatical and spelling errors, traces his life from childhood to his
years at Auburn. It is written under the name Rob Reed, although it is
unclear why he used that name, according to Yale.

In the early
pages, Reed describes a childhood incident when, encouraged by his
sister, he disguised himself as a girl and attempted to kill a man to
avenge an earlier whipping.

“I cocked the pistol and with an
uplifted hand of revenge I let fire and missd my shot,” he wrote. “It
was a dark night. I could hardly see my hands before my face. The old
man hollowd murder, murder, but before any aid could get to him I drew
the knife a cross his shoulders wich left a deep wound for months
afterward.”

Later, Reed describes torturous punishments at
Auburn that were typical at the time, including frequent whippings and a
device known as the shower-bath, a kind of precursor to waterboarding
that was occasionally fatal.

“Stripping off my shirt the
tyrantical curse bounded my hands fast in front of me and orderd me to
stand around,” Reed wrote. “Turning my back towards him he threw Sixty
seven lashes on me according to the orders of Esq. Cook. I was then to
stand over the dreain while one of the inmates wash my back in a pail of
salt brine.”

Eileen McHugh, the executive director of the Cayuga Museum of History and Art,
near Auburn, said that Reed would have been writing under arduous
conditions. At the time, prison cells were unlit and had no windows. Men
at Auburn were forced to work 10 hours a day in total silence. (In
1890, Auburn would become the site of the first execution by electric
chair.)

“I don’t know that it would be forbidden,” Ms. McHugh
said of a prisoner’s ability to write, “but nothing would have made it
easy.”

Reed probably had extremely limited access to reading
material — perhaps little more than the Bible — but the manuscript makes
mention of “Robinson Crusoe,” the 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe, and a
1788 poem by William Cowper, “The Morning Dream.”

Prisoners
were not allowed to speak and were required to move in lock step, so
that they were never face to face with one another. They had no leisure
time.

“This was, in the beginning, considered progressive,
because they thought it was a way of rehabilitating these criminals,”
Ms. McHugh said. “In reality, it was completely contrary to human
nature.”

There is reason to believe that Reed hoped that the
book would eventually find an audience. Its subtitle is “With the
Mysteries and Miseries of the New York House of Reffuge and Auburn
Prison Unmasked.”

He frequently addresses the reader directly
and appears to have shared the manuscript with someone, though that
person’s name is illegible in a note inside it. Mr. Smith, the Yale
professor, said he is preparing the manuscript for publication. “We know
that this was never printed, but certainly Reed wanted it to be,” he
said. “He’s not writing for intimates, he’s not writing for himself.
He’s writing it for the public.”

Tobacco
companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in antismoking
laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or block
regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco laws
violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising the
prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and
officials said.

The strategy has
gained momentum in recent years as smoking rates in rich countries have
fallen and tobacco companies have sought to maintain access to
fast-growing markets in developing countries. Industry officials say
that there are only a few cases of active litigation, and that giving a
legal opinion to governments is routine for major players whose
interests will be affected.

But tobacco opponents say the
strategy is intimidating low- and middle-income countries from tackling
one of the gravest health threats facing them: smoking. They also say
the legal tactics are undermining the world’s largest global public
health treaty, the W.H.O. Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,
which aims to reduce smoking by encouraging limits on advertising,
packaging and sale of tobacco products. More than 170 countries have
signed it since it took effect in 2005.

Alarmed about rising smoking rates among young women, Namibia, in
southern Africa, passed a tobacco control law in 2010 but quickly found
itself bombarded with stern warnings from the tobacco industry that the
new statute violated the country’s obligations under trade treaties.

“We have bundles and bundles of letters from them,” said Namibia’s health minister, Dr. Richard Kamwi.

Three years later, the government, fearful of a punishingly expensive
legal battle, has yet to carry out a single major provision of the law,
like limiting advertising or placing large health warnings on cigarette
packaging.

The issue is particularly urgent now as the United
States completes talks on a major new trade treaty with 11 Pacific Rim
countries that aims to be a model for the rules of international
commerce. Administration officials say they want the new treaty to raise
standards for public health. They single out tobacco as a health concern, wording that upset the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, which said
that the inclusion would leave the door open for other products, like
soda or sugar, to be heavily regulated in other countries.

“Our
goal in this agreement is to protect the legitimate health regulations
that treaty countries want to pursue from efforts by tobacco companies
to undermine them,” said Michael Froman, the United States trade
representative, in a telephone interview. The language is not yet final,
he said.

But public health advocates say the current wording
would not stop countries from being sued when they adopt strong tobacco
control measures, though some trade experts said it might make the
companies less likely to win. This fall, more than 50 members of the
House and about a dozen members of the Senate sent letters to the
administration expressing concern.

Tobacco consumption more than doubled in the developing world from 1970 to 2000, according to the United Nations. Much of the increase was in China, but there has also been substantial growth in Africa,
where smoking rates have traditionally been low. More than
three-quarters of the world’s smokers now live in the developing world.

Dr. Margaret Chan, director general of the W.H.O., said in a speech last year
that legal actions against Uruguay, Norway and Australia were
“deliberately designed to instill fear” in countries trying to reduce
smoking.

“The wolf is no longer in sheep’s clothing, and its teeth are bared,” she said.

Tobacco companies are objecting to laws in both developed and
developing nations. Industry officials say they respect countries’
efforts to protect public health, but face difficulties promoting their
brands as more countries ban cigarette ads. Often, the only space left
is the packaging, and even that is shrinking, with some countries
requiring that packages be plastered with shocking pictures of people
with cancer; in Australia, brand names are reduced to uniform block
letters on drab olive backgrounds.

“Removing our trademarks
removes our assurance to customers of the origin and quality of our
lawfully available products, meaning they and their characteristics
become indistinguishable from those of our competitors,” said Gareth
Cooper, group head of regulation at British American Tobacco.

In the early 1990s, the American government used to pressure countries
to open their markets to American tobacco companies. As smoking rates in
some of these countries rose, outrage grew, and President Bill Clinton
issued an executive order in 2001 that banned the United States
government from lobbying on the industry’s behalf.

But other types of trade agreements have emerged that give companies rights.

Such treaties are intended to promote prosperity by reducing trade
barriers and protecting investors from expropriation by foreign
governments. They allow companies to sue directly, instead of having to
persuade a state to take up their case. They have proliferated since the
1990s, and number around 3,000, up from a few hundred in the late
1980s, according to Robert Stumberg, a law professor at the Harrison
Institute for Public Law at Georgetown University, whose clients include
antismoking groups.

In Africa, at least four countries —
Namibia, Gabon, Togo and Uganda — have received warnings from the
tobacco industry that their laws run afoul of international treaties,
said Patricia Lambert, director of the international legal consortium at
the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

“They’re trying to
intimidate everybody,” said Jonathan Liberman, director of the McCabe
Center for Law and Cancer in Australia, which gives legal support to
countries that have been challenged by tobacco companies. In Namibia,
the tobacco industry has said that requiring large warning labels on
cigarette packages violates its intellectual property rights and could
fuel counterfeiting.

Mr. Cooper, of British American Tobacco,
whose local affiliate sent the government a legal opinion, said in an
email that countries should “consider the broader context of
implementing regulations that can impact trade.”

Thomas
Bollyky, a trade lawyer and a fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, said many developing countries are at a disadvantage in
investment cases because they do not have the specialized legal
expertise or resources to fight.

Uruguay has acknowledged
that it would have had to drop its tobacco control law and settle with
Philip Morris International if the foundation of the departing mayor of
New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, had not paid to defend the law. (The
company’s net revenue last year was $77 billion, substantially more than
Uruguay’s gross domestic product.) Even developed countries like Canada
and New Zealand have backed away from planned tobacco laws in the face
of investment treaty claims, Mr. Bollyky said.

The most closely
watched legal battle is playing out in Australia, where the tobacco
industry lost a case in domestic courts last year. Philip Morris
International has filed suit under an investment treaty between
Australia and Hong Kong, where the firm has a branch. The proceedings,
which are not public, will be held in Singapore and decided by outside
arbitrators, not judges.

Philip Morris International has dozens
of subsidiaries, allowing the company “to play the treaty game much
more adroitly,” Professor Stumberg said.

Companies are even
paying for countries to make the industry’s case against other nations
in the World Trade Organization. Ukraine filed a complaint with the
organization against Australia’s packaging rule, even though the two
countries barely trade. Mr. Cooper acknowledged that his company was
helping Ukraine pay the legal bills, but said that was standard practice
in W.T.O. disputes.

Bashupi Maloboka, a Health Ministry
official who steered the tobacco control law to passage in Namibia, said
the industry’s approach had slowed what was already a plodding process.

“The fear is that they have the money and they have the
resources, so they can pay for anything,” said Mr. Maloboka, who retired
last year.

But Dr. Kamwi, the health minister, said he hoped
the regulations to put the 2010 law into practice would be finished next
year. “We have decided to put our foot down,” he said. “If they want to
go to court, we will see them there.”

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies for New York Professionals
By
ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Many
in New York’s professional and cultural elite have long supported
President Obama’s health care plan. But now, to their surprise,
thousands of writers, opera singers, music teachers, photographers,
doctors, lawyers and others are learning that their health insurance
plans are being canceled and they may have to pay more to get comparable
coverage, if they can find it.

They are part of an unusual
informal health insurance system that has developed in New York in which
independent practitioners were able to get lower insurance rates
through group plans, typically set up by their professional associations
or chambers of commerce. That allowed them to avoid the sky-high rates
in New York’s individual insurance market, historically among the most expensive in the country.

But under the Affordable Care Act, they will be treated as individuals,
responsible for their own insurance policies. For many of them, that is
likely to mean they will no longer have access to a wide network of
doctors and a range of plans tailored to their needs. And many of them
are finding that if they want to keep their premiums from rising, they
will have to accept higher deductible and co-pay costs or inferior
coverage.

“I couldn’t sleep because of it,” said Barbara Meinwald, a solo practitioner lawyer in Manhattan.

Ms. Meinwald, 61, has been paying $10,000 a year for her insurance
through the New York City Bar. A broker told her that a new temporary
plan with fewer doctors would cost $5,000 more, after factoring in the
cost of her medications.

Ms. Meinwald also looked on the
state’s health insurance exchange. But she said she found that those
plans did not have a good choice of doctors, and that it was hard to
even find out who the doctors were, and which hospitals were covered.
“It’s like you’re blindfolded and you’re told that you have to buy
something,” she said.

The people affected include not just
writers, artists, doctors and the like, they said, but also independent
tradespeople, like home builders or carpenters, who work on their own.

Some have received notices already; others, whose plans have not yet
expired, will soon receive letters in the mail. It is unclear exactly
how many New Yorkers are affected; according to state health officials,
as many as 400,000 independent practitioners get health insurance
through job-related group plans, but that number also includes people
who receive coverage through their spouses’ employers.

The
predicament is similar to that of millions of Americans who discovered
this fall that their existing policies were being canceled because of
the Affordable Care Act. The crescendo of outrage led to Mr. Obama’s offer to restore their policies, though some states that have their own exchanges, like California and New York, have said they will not do so.

But while those policies, by and large, had been canceled because they
did not meet the law’s requirements for minimum coverage, many of the
New York policies being canceled meet and often exceed the standards,
brokers say. The rationale for disqualifying those policies, said Larry
Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation,
was to prevent associations from selling insurance to healthy members
who are needed to keep the new health exchanges financially viable.

Siphoning those people, Mr. Levitt said, would leave the pool of health
exchange customers “smaller and disproportionately sicker,” and would
drive up rates.

Alicia Hartinger, a spokeswoman for the Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said independent practitioners
“will generally have an equal level of protection in the individual
market as they would have if they were buying in the small-group
market.” She said the president’s offer to temporarily restore canceled
polices applied to association coverage, if states and insurers agreed.
New York has no plans to do so.

Donna Frescatore, executive director of New York State of Health,
the state insurance exchange, said that on a positive note, about half
of those affected would qualify for subsidized insurance under the new
health exchange because they had incomes under 400 percent of the
poverty level, about $46,000 for an individual.

But many
professionals make too much money to qualify for the subsidies, and even
if they are able to find comparably priced insurance, the new policies
do not have the coverage they are accustomed to.

David Rubin, vice president of Teiget,
the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust, which had served as a
broker for about 1,000 members of creative guilds, said a big complaint
was that in New York City and much of the state, the new individual
plans both on and off the exchange did not allow patients to go to
doctors out of network. “All these people had these customized plans
which are better than most of the things out there, and most of them are
saving only a small amount of money,” he said.

Roy Lyons, managing director of Marsh U.S. Consumer,
an insurance brokerage, said he had heard complaints from physicians,
lawyers, pharmacists and optometrists. “At first they think it’s the bar
association making the decision or the insurance company doing it,” he
said. “We have to explain that this is the Affordable Care Act; that’s
what was put into law. Once they understand, they’re less emotional, but
they’re not happy with it.”

“One of the reasons to join a society is to get health insurance,” said
Dr. Paul N. Orloff, president of the New York County Medical Society.
Even doctors pay a lot for coverage, he said, because the days of
trading medical care with colleagues are long gone. “In the old days,
professional courtesy was the norm,” he said.

The medical
society has not yet formally notified its solo practitioners, because
their insurance plans do not expire until April. But those letters will
be going out soon, officials said.

It is not lost on many of
the professionals that they are exactly the sort of people – liberal,
concerned with social justice – who supported the Obama health plan in
the first place. Ms. Meinwald, the lawyer, said she was a lifelong
Democrat who still supported better health care for all, but had she
known what was in store for her, she would have voted for Mitt Romney.

It is an uncomfortable position for many members of the creative
classes to be in. “We are the Obama people,” said Camille Sweeney, a New
York writer and member of the Authors Guild. Her insurance is being
canceled, and she is dismayed that neither her pediatrician nor her
general practitioner appears to be on the exchange plans. What to do has
become a hot topic on Facebook and at dinner parties frequented by her
fellow writers and artists. “I’m for it,” she said. “But what is the
reality of it?”

NEW
ORLEANS — Even before the arrests started in 2010, it was becoming
clear that this was going to be one of the most wide-ranging federal
campaigns against police wrongdoing in the country.

In addition
to a deep yearlong investigation into the culture and practices of this
city’s Police Department, the Justice Department that year charged 18
current and former officers with crimes relating to the deaths of
residents in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Between plea agreements and convictions over the ensuing months,
officers were collectively facing over 250 years in prison. But recently
that campaign has faced a series of stunning reversals, most recently
on Wednesday night when a federal jury acquitted David Warren, a former
police officer who was on trial, for the second time, on charges of
shooting and killing an unarmed man. This acquittal came three months
after a federal judge threw out the convictions and ordered new trials
for five other officers in connection with the shooting of six unarmed
civilians on the Danziger Bridge.

As a result, rather than the
clear-cut strike at criminal behavior by law officers envisioned three
years ago, the post-Katrina prosecutions have proved to be a far more
difficult and problematic undertaking.

Wednesday’s verdict in
particular seemed to line up with what many of the officers on trial
have argued: that these were unique events under extreme circumstances
rather than, as the Justice Department and even some city officials have
insisted, symptoms of a much deeper and broader dysfunction within the
police force.

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, these
problems will have on the efforts to transform the culture of the
department, now well underway as part of a judicially enforced consent
decree. Federal officials say the reform efforts are proceeding as
planned.

“The department found systemwide criminal justice
problems, and the people of New Orleans have a right to have them
addressed,” Jocelyn Samuels, the acting assistant attorney general for
civil rights for the Justice Department, said in a statement.

The criminal cases that attracted the attention of federal officials had
either been known about publicly, as in the Danziger case, or known
about within certain police circles. But state-level prosecutions were
either botched or not brought at all before the Justice Department
became involved.

The most recognized case nationally was the
police shooting on the Danziger Bridge, which left two unarmed people
dead and four wounded. An article in The Nation
first revealed the details behind the death of Henry Glover — whose
killing brought about the charges against Mr. Warren — and the cover-up
that followed, involving the torching by officers of Mr. Glover’s body
in car they abandoned.

In another case, a 45-year-old man was
shot by the police outside the convention center one night when it was
still crowded with those stranded by the floods. Multiple arrests were
made in all three cases. But four of the officers were tried and
acquitted, a tally that now includes Mr. Warren, who had been granted a
retrial by a federal appeals court after initially being convicted of
manslaughter.

Six officers have had their convictions vacated
by federal judges and are waiting for new trials. This group includes
five defendants in the Danziger case, whose convictions were thrown out
by a judge after it was revealed that members of the United States
attorney’s office were posting anonymous and acerbic comments online
before and during the trial.

One of the officers involved in
the Glover case had part of his conviction thrown out and is waiting to
be resentenced. A judge declared a mistrial in the case of a detective
charged with taking part in the cover-up of the Danziger shooting; his
new trial date has not been set.

Of those charged in the
Katrina-related cases, there is one who was convicted and sentenced, and
who exhausted his appeals. That former police officer, Ronald Mitchell,
was found guilty of lying in a deposition in the case of the man shot
at the convention center. He is already out of prison.

Legal
experts say that successful prosecutions of police officers are always
difficult. But the drumbeat of failures and setbacks has left even some
of the most vocal proponents of police reform disillusioned.

“What indicator do we have that the government is going to be here to
protect the citizens of this community?” asked Norris Henderson, an
advocate for ex-prisoners. “Who’s responsible for enforcing it?” he
asked of the consent decree. “The feds. And they just failed us
yesterday.”

Those who view the verdicts as correct are similarly skeptical, though for opposite reasons.

Peter Scharf, a criminology professor at Tulane University who worked
as a defense consultant for one of the accused officers, said that the
problematic federal prosecutions had begun to undermine the foundations
of the consent decree, even while conceding that reform is needed.

“You can’t solve what you don’t understand,” he said, arguing that the
consent decree was spurred by events that juries had found somewhat
ambiguous on closer scrutiny. “In the heat of passion, to address these
evils they skipped steps.”

To Justice Department officials and
many New Orleans residents, the troubling events just after Katrina — as
well as other violent episodes that took place in more normal times —
exposed a fragmented department, a deeply flawed leadership and a severe
and potentially dangerous lack of discipline among some members of the
force. So in 2010, while federal officials pursued criminal
investigations, they set up a separate investigative track into more
systemic problems, which led to the consent decree.

Like the
criminal prosecutions, this also ran into unexpected obstacles. The
mayor of New Orleans balked last year after the Orleans Parish sheriff
and the Justice Department announced a similar consent decree governing
the troubled city jail. The mayor legally challenged the police
agreement he had once hailed, but the challenge was rebuffed in the
courts and the consent decree remains in place.

Rafael
Goyeneche, the president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a
watchdog group here, said there is no reason to believe the setbacks in
the criminal trials would affect the consent decree. Although some of
these cases prompted the initial federal attention, the consent decree
that resulted is now wholly independent of the criminal
prosecutions.“There is no turning back,” he said. “Even if every one of
these cases resulted in an acquittal, it would have no impact on the
consent decree.”

For now that appears to be true. Last month,
the court-appointed consent decree monitor released his first quarterly
report. It was at turns critical and encouraging about the department’s
moves toward reform.

“Even considering the notable strides the
city has made in recent years,” the report reads, “solving the agency’s
problems will take time, discipline and patience.”

RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia — Drone-fired missiles struck a convoy of cars returning
from a wedding on Thursday afternoon in a remote area of Yemen, witnesses said, killing at least 11 people in what appeared to be the second American drone strike in the past week.

Most of the dead appeared to be people suspected of being militants linked to Al Qaeda, according to tribal leaders in the area, but there were also reports that several civilians had been killed.

The drone strikes followed a deadly multistage assault
last week on Yemen’s Defense Ministry that left 52 people dead, and for
which Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate claimed responsibility. The
attack stunned Yemen’s political and military leadership, still
struggling to regroup in the wake of popular uprisings in 2011 that
toppled the country’s leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The violence also sharpens a dilemma for President Obama, who said in
May that he had approved new, stricter guidelines for drone strikes, and
promised to make the drone campaign more transparent. After the
president’s speech, the frequency of drone strikes in Yemen briefly
dipped.

But a series of militant attacks in recent months have
highlighted the threat posed by the Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda,
which has tried to blow up United States-bound airliners since 2009. And
after American intelligence officials intercepted a phone call between
two high-level Qaeda leaders during the summer, they authorized a
two-week burst of drone strikes to forestall terrorist plots, officials
said. At least nine strikes took place, though it is not clear whether
any of the people suspected of being militants who were killed were
significant figures or involved in plots.

The recent insurgent
attacks have laid bare the Yemeni government’s inability to counter the
militants, despite increased American aid for counterterrorism
operations. Scores of soldiers and police officers have been killed
since the summer, and there are new signs that Al Qaeda has infiltrated
the Yemeni military and security services.

Moreover, there are
concerns that the drone strikes themselves may aggravate the problem. In
the wake of last week’s attack on the Defense Ministry’s fortified
headquarters in Yemen’s capital, Sana, some Qaeda-linked websites said
the militants were seeking revenge for drone strikes, repeating a theme
often heard in villages where drones are audible overhead.

Thursday’s drone strike took place in Yakla, an area southeast of the
capital known as a stronghold of Al Qaeda. Residents said that drones
had been audible overhead since the day before, and that the victims
were returning from a wedding in a nearby town in a large convoy.

A local website, Bayda Press, gave the names of 11 dead men, all from
the Tays and Bin Amr tribes, which are said to be closely associated
with Al Qaeda in the area. For months, the area near Yakla, in Bayda
Province, has been largely controlled by the militants, who appeared to
be trying to set up a Taliban-style community, according to residents of
nearby towns.

On Monday, a drone strike in the eastern Yemeni
province of Hadramawt killed three men who local news reports said were
suspected of being Qaeda militants. It is not clear whether the two
strikes this week were connected to the assault on the Defense Ministry.
At least two drone strikes were reported in November as well, though
details remained murky.

This fall her neighborhood in the northeastern part of this city has
been shaken by dozens of minor earthquakes. “We would just have little
trembles all the time,” she said.

Even before a magnitude 4.5
quake on Saturday knocked objects off her walls and a stone from above
her neighbor’s bay window, Ms. Sexton was on edge.

“People are fed up with the earthquakes,” she said. “Our kids are scared. We’re scared.”

Oklahoma has never been known as earthquake country, with a yearly
average of about 50 tremors, almost all of them minor. But in the past
three years, the state has had thousands of quakes. This year has been
the most active, with more than 2,600 so far, including 87 last week.

While most have been too slight to be felt, some, like the quake on
Saturday and a smaller one in November that cracked a bathroom wall in
Ms. Sexton’s house, have been sensed over a wide area and caused damage.
In 2011, a magnitude 5.6 quake — the biggest ever recorded in the state
— injured two people and severely damaged more than a dozen homes, some
beyond repair.

State officials say they are concerned, and residents accustomed to tornadoes and hail are now talking about buying earthquake insurance.

“I’m scared there’s going to be a bigger one,” Ms. Sexton said.

Just as unsettling in a state where more than 340,000 jobs are tied to
the oil and gas industry is what scientists say may be causing many of
the quakes: the widespread industry practice of disposing of billions of
gallons of wastewater that is produced along with oil and gas, by
injecting it under pressure into wells that reach permeable rock
formations.

“Disposal wells pose the biggest risk,” said Austin
Holland, a seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey, who is
studying the various clusters of quakes around the state.

Oklahoma has more than 4,000 disposal wells for waste from tens of
thousands of oil and gas wells. “Could we be looking at some cumulative
tipping point? Yes, that’s absolutely possible,” Dr. Holland said. But
there could be other explanations for the increase in earthquakes, he
added.

Scientists have known for years that injection wells and
other human activities can induce earthquakes by changing pressures
underground. That can have the effect of “unclamping” old stressed
faults so the rocks can slip past each other and cause the ground to
shake.

The weight of water behind a new dam in China, for example, is thought to have induced a 2008 quake in Sichuan Province that killed 80,000 people. In Australia, a 1989 quake
that killed 13 people was attributed in part to the opposite effect —
the removal of millions of tons of coal during more than two centuries
of mining.

In other places, including California and Switzerland, enhanced geothermal projects, in which water is pumped into hot rocks deep underground to produce energy, have caused quakes.

In Texas, some earthquakes have been connected to the industry practice
of “water flooding,” increasing the yield of older oil wells by pumping
water into nearby wells to force the oil out, said Cliff Frohlich, a
University of Texas scientist. In other cases, Dr. Frohlich said, just
the extraction of oil and gas from a long-producing field has been seen
to induce quakes.

The practice of hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking — injecting liquid at high pressures into shale rock — causes
very small tremors as the rocks break, releasing trapped oil or gas. The
technique has also been linked to a few minor earthquakes — in Oklahoma
about a year ago, and in England and British Columbia. Yet unlike the
continuing clusters of quakes elsewhere, the fracking-related
earthquakes occurred only over short time periods, scientists say.

Of greater potential concern, scientists say, is wastewater disposal —
from fracked or more conventional wells. Disposal wells linked to quakes
have been shut down in a few states, including Arkansas and Ohio.

Along with oil and gas, water comes out of wells, often in enormous
amounts, and must be disposed of continuously. Because transporting
water, usually by truck, is costly, disposal wells are commonly located
near producing wells.

The oil and gas industry points out that
many of Oklahoma’s disposal wells are in areas with no earthquake
activity, and that the practice of injecting wastewater has been going
on for years.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time and it
hasn’t been an issue before,” said Chad Warmington, president of the
Oklahoma Oil and Gas Association.

But Dr. Frohlich said that
what had changed was where the disposal was occurring. With the boom in
production of oil and gas from shale formations, he said, “People are
disposing of fluids in places they haven’t before.”

Still, it
is difficult to show a definitive link between a group of quakes and
nearby disposal wells, and Dr. Holland thinks there may be other
explanations for some of the recent quakes, including the largest one,
which occurred on a known fault line about 50 miles east of Oklahoma
City.

Oklahoma does have natural seismic activity, he noted,
and has had a few powerful quakes in the past, including one with a
magnitude of 5.5 in 1952 and one estimated at about a magnitude of 7
that the geological record shows occurred 1,300 years ago. He also
thinks changes in the water level of a large nearby lake may be
responsible for some of the quakes around Oklahoma City, although he
says this is not the most likely explanation.

The swarm of quakes has state regulators concerned, but cautious.

“We have to look at what data and scientific evidence supports some
connection,” before deciding on steps to manage the risk, said Dana L.
Murphy, a commissioner with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
Theoretically, at least, the commission could order some wells to be
shut.

Already the commission has reached an agreement with a
disposal well operator in Love County, about 100 miles south of Oklahoma
City, to reduce the amount of wastewater injected into his well. The
facility had been operating for only two weeks, injecting up to 400,000
gallons of water a day from nearby fracking operations, when earthquakes
started occurring in September, including one that toppled a chimney
and caused other damage.

All the shaking in the state has
people talking about what to do if a bigger one were to hit. “I’ve been
through a lot of tornadoes — you can go hide from them,” said Bill
Hediger, whose home in Edmond, just north of Oklahoma City, shows cracks
in the walls from the magnitude 5.6 quake. “But you can’t hide from an
earthquake.”

Dr. Holland said that given the geological record,
he could not rule out the possibility that a larger quake may occur in
the state.

Ms. Sexton said she was not against the oil and gas
industry, but added that if the quakes in her area were definitively
linked to disposal wells, they should be shut down. “It would hurt oil
and gas,” she said. “But it’s oil and gas hurting homeowners and making
people fearful.”

SEATTLE — The highest municipal minimum wage in the nation, approved by
voters last month in the small city of SeaTac, Wash., at $15 an hour,
survived a narrow election and a recount. Now, just weeks before its
scheduled Jan. 1 start date – raising the pay of thousands of SeaTac
residents and workers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, which is
within the city limits — opponents are sending in the lawyers.

At a hearing scheduled for Friday in King County Superior Court in
Seattle, Judge Andrea Darvas is expected to rule on whether to affirm
the statute, strike it down or perhaps hold it in abeyance. Supporters
of the measure said they were braced for a loss, and were preparing an
emergency appeal to the state’s highest court.

The statute,
which is being closely watched around the nation by labor and business
groups as a barometer of the nation’s working wage debate, specifically
exempts airlines and small businesses, including restaurants with fewer
than 10 employees, but could raise pay for about 6,500 workers on and
off airport property and give paid sick days to many of those workers
for the first time.

Alaska Airlines and the Washington
Restaurant Association are leading the legal challenge, contending that
the measure, known as Proposition 1, was too broadly and vaguely
written, and that the city has no authority to regulate economic
activity at the airport, which is operated by the Port of Seattle.

Although Alaska Airlines employees would not be covered by the law, the
company said that higher costs borne by its contractors would be passed
on to the airlines and travelers.

The director of government
affairs for the Restaurant Association, Bruce Beckett, said he thought
that no matter what happens on Friday, the statute could have a long
legal road ahead because of the complexity of the issues raised. “I
don’t know how this can all be resolved by Jan. 1,” he said.

Labor leaders, in pushing the wage measure before the election, said
that higher wages for airport workers would benefit the entire region,
since most of those workers live outside the city of SeaTac.

In
responding to the legal challenge, Heather Weiner, a spokeswoman for a
group that worked for Proposition 1’s passage, derided the lawsuit as
containing “everything but the legal kitchen sink.”

Washington
already has the highest state minimum in the nation, at $9.19, but
stands to be surpassed by California, which recently approved a $10
minimum, phased in over two years. The federal minimum is $7.25. The
SeaTac statute passed by just 77 votes out of about 6,000 cast – a
number affirmed in the recount results that were announced this week.

Friday’s hearing will not be the first time Proposition 1 has come
before Judge Darvas. In August, she threw the measure off the ballot,
agreeing with opponents that the signature process had been flawed. Her
order was later reversed by an appeals court in time for the election.

But she also stressed in her ruling at the time that she was taking no
position on the underlying question about minimum wage levels — only on
the technical aspects of the law.

“The court wishes to
emphasize that its decision in this matter has nothing whatsoever to do
with the substance of the initiative itself,” she wrote.

WASHINGTON — Mary Helen Gillespie of Londonderry, N.H., is about to
lose her last government lifeline. Since being laid off from a large
banking firm in April, Ms. Gillespie, 57, has been living on little more
than her unemployment insurance payments of $384 a week. She has burned
through her savings and moved back in with her parents.

“There
are times where I’ll go two, three, four days where I only have five
dollars in my wallet and no money in my checking account,” said Ms.
Gillespie, who worked as a corporate compliance officer at her previous
employer,choking up as she described the difficulty of finding a job,
any job, after her second extended period of joblessness since 2007.
“I’ve been making decisions such as: Do I buy groceries or do I buy
prescriptions?”

Ms. Gillespie’s 26 weeks of state benefits ran
out this month, but she remained eligible for the emergency federal
unemployment-insurance program, which has provided as many as 73
additional weeks of checks in states with high jobless rates.

Until now. Unless Congress acts — suddenly and unexpectedly — that
recession-era initiative will expire at the end of the month. About 1.3
million current beneficiaries will lose aid. Also affected are an
estimated 1.9 million more who would have been eligible for the program
in the first half of 2014 after their state benefits ran out.

Democrats in Congress are pushing for an extension, which would cost the
government an estimated $25 billion through 2014, while providing a
modest lift, according to the Congressional Budget Office, to overall
economic activity.

“If Congress refuses to act, it won’t just
hurt families already struggling,” President Obama said last week. “It
will actually harm our economy. Unemployment insurance is one of the
most effective ways there is to boost our economy.”

But the
bipartisan budget deal introduced by Senator Patty Murray, a Washington
Democrat, and Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, does
not include the extension.

Republicans contend that they would
be willing to negotiate one, if its cost were offset with spending
cutbacks elsewhere. But congressional aides described that as unlikely
to happen — and certainly not before the end of the year.

“We’ve worked all year to get our economy going again and to help
produce better jobs and more wages,” John A. Boehner of Ohio, the
speaker of the House, told reporters this week. “When the White House
finally called me last Friday about extending unemployment benefits, I
said that we would clearly consider it as long as it’s paid for and as
long as there are other efforts that’ll help get our economy moving once
again. I have not seen a plan from the White House that meets those
standards.”

Many Republicans are more adamantly opposed to an
extension, on the grounds that unemployment insurance payments tend to
lengthen the time a jobless worker remains without work and thus raise
the unemployment rate. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, for instance, has
argued that another extension of the program would be a “disservice” to
the jobless.

Economists generally agree that long-term
unemployment payments can act as a disincentive for some people by
encouraging them to hold out longer for a better job. But most say that
the reason the vast majority of the nation’s unemployed cannot find work
is because of the weak economy.

Today, the official
unemployment rate stands at 7 percent, with about 11 million Americans
looking for work, including four million who have been looking for more
than six months. Many millions more have dropped out of the labor force
altogether or been forced to take part-time jobs when they want
full-time work.

Barry Iverson, a 34-year-old online content
manager from Washington State, has a college degree and a solid work
history. Since getting laid off from a failing start-up in June, he has
applied to scores of jobs. “I can’t even get a job mopping floors,” he
said.

Mr. Iverson’s income dropped by nearly two-thirds when he
lost his job and started accepting about $490 a week in unemployment
insurance payments. He said that his family had pared back spending to
the essentials: things like groceries, gas and utilities. Even then, he
said, they have maxed out their credit cards. He carefully watches their
bank account to make sure their checks do not bounce.

He and
his wife, who have two small children, are not sure what they will do if
his unemployment insurance payments run out before he can find another
job. “It’s really tough to think about,” he said.

“Christmas is
just a hurdle to get through,” he said. “I don’t want to call it a
stressor, but it’s just one of those things where you have to put on
your best smile and get through it and try to focus on the positive.”

For job seekers like Ms. Gillespie and Mr. Iverson, the labor market
remains punishing even though the economy has been on a modest upswing
for more than four years. The hiring rate has scarcely increased,
and competition for positions remains fierce. The unemployment rate has
come down mostly because workers are dropping out of the labor force,
and businesses are no longer letting large numbers of workers go.

“I’ve tried for minimum-wage jobs, just to bring some income in,” Ms.
Gillespie said. “I’ve been told I’m overqualified, and that I wouldn’t
last because if I got a real job, I’d leave. That means it’s just
another cycle of hearing no and no and no over and over again.”

The end of the jobless payments, by removing a modest source of
consumer spending, will actually cost the economy jobs. Economists
estimate that losing the emergency benefits will reduce economic growth
by about 0.4 percentage points in the first quarter of next year below
what it otherwise might be.

For now, hundreds of thousands of
workers are bracing for the imminent loss of the payments. “I was
terrified when I found out the payments were ending,” Ms. Gillespie
said. “It is just another kick in the head.”

The
parents of Trayvon Martin met with publishers this week to shop a book
about their son, the unarmed black teenager who was shot and killed in
Florida in 2012.

According to two publishing executives who
participated in meetings, Mr. Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy
Martin, said they intended to write a book that gives the full picture
of their son while tracing their own experience of shock and sorrow.

The meetings were described as somber and moving by publishers who were
present. Ms. Fulton and Mr. Martin were accompanied by Jan Miller,
their Dallas-based literary agent.

One publishing executive
said Mr. Martin and Ms. Fulton spoke eloquently on social issues of race
and religion, suggesting that faith could be a central element of the
book.

They told publishers that they have never fully spoken
out about what happened, including their experience at the trial of
George Zimmerman, who shot their son. Mr. Zimmerman, who claimed
self-defense, was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter in
July.

The book has the potential to attract major media
attention, especially on cable television, which exhaustively covered
the fatal shooting and subsequent trial. Ms. Miller did not immediately
return an email seeking comment.

HOUSTON — Wealth has never had a stigma in the affluent suburbs of
Fort Worth, where the town of Westlake landed, to no one’s surprise, on Forbes’ list of America’s most affluent neighborhoods last year with a median income of $250,000.

But in recent days, the implications of being rich have set off an
emotional, angry debate that has stretched far beyond the North Texas
suburbs, after a juvenile court judge sentenced a 16-year-old from a
well-off family to 10 years’ probation for killing four people in a
drunken-driving crash.

The judge, Jean Boyd, on Tuesday
declined to give the teenager, Ethan Couch, the punishment sought by
Tarrant County prosecutors — 20 years in prison — and instead ordered
him to be placed in a long-term treatment facility while on probation.
Judge Boyd did not discuss her reasoning for her order, but it came
after a psychologist called by the defense argued that Mr. Couch should
not be sent to prison because he suffered from “affluenza” — a term that
dates at least to the 1980s to describe the psychological problems that
can afflict children of privilege.

Prosecutors said they had
never heard of a case where the defense tried to blame a young man’s
conduct on the parents’ wealth. And the use of the term and the judge’s
sentence have outraged the families of those Mr. Couch killed and
injured, as well as victim rights advocates who questioned whether a
teenager from a low-income family would have received as lenient a
penalty.

“We are disappointed by the punishment assessed, but
have no power under the law to change or overturn it,” one of the
prosecutors, Richard Alpert, said in a statement.

But despite the national attention the case has received — “Being rich is now a get-out-of-jail-free card,” read a headline at TheWeek.com
— the role that the wealth of Mr. Couch’s family played in his
sentence, and whether the judge had in any way been influenced by the
psychologist’s testimony, remained unclear.

Criminal defense
lawyers said it was not uncommon for minors involved in serious
drunken-driving cases and other crimes to receive probation instead of
prison time, even in a tough-on-crime region such as North Texas. Other
experts said it was part of a growing trend of giving a young person a
second chance through rehabilitation instead of trying him as an adult.

Liz Ryan, the president and chief executive of the Campaign for Youth Justice,
a group in Washington that advocates for juvenile rehabilitation, said
that in a series of recent cases before the Supreme Court and state
courts, advances in neuroscience have been applied to questions of crime
and punishment for young people.

“They make mistakes, they’re prone to impulsive behavior,” Ms. Ryan said. “And at the same time, they are capable of change.”

But a prominent advocate for victims’ rights reacted to the sentence
with scorn. “Just when you think our excuse-making culture has sunk as
low as it can go, somebody goes yet lower,” said Kent Scheidegger, the
legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento.

Scott Brown, Mr. Couch’s lawyer, said that while the word affluenza may
have become an object of fascination, it was never at the heart of the
case. His client had already pleaded guilty, and the word came up in
hearings on punishment. “I never used the word affluenza, and never
would have used such a cute word in such a serious, tragic case,” Mr.
Brown said. “That’s just been blown completely out of proportion.”

Mr. Couch’s parents, Fred and Tonya Couch, own homes in Fort Worth and
the nearby suburb of Burleson, where the crash occurred. Fred Couch runs
a sheet-metal company. On the night of June 15, Ethan Couch and several
friends stole beer from a Walmart and went to his parents’ Burleson
home to have a party. Later, he and seven others crowded into the pickup
truck owned by his father’s company to go to a store.

Prosecutors said Mr. Couch swerved off Burleson-Retta Road, killing four
pedestrians: Breanna Mitchell; Hollie Boyles and her daughter Shelby,
21; and Brian Jennings. Tests showed that Mr. Couch had a blood-alcohol
level of 0.24, three times the legal limit for drivers.

Hollie
and Shelby Boyles had left their house that night to assist Ms.
Mitchell, a stranger whose car had broken down. “I’m sure the judge is
doing what she thinks is probably right for Ethan’s rehabilitation,”
said Eric Boyles, Shelby’s father and Hollie’s husband. “But from the
victims’ standpoint, she underestimated the impact. Words can’t describe
how disappointed I am in terms of how the judicial system works.”

Two teenagers riding in the bed of the pickup were thrown from the
vehicle. One of them, Sergio Molina, 15, suffered a severe brain injury
and remains in a minimally responsive state. His family filed a suit
against Mr. Couch, his parents and his father’s company.

Bill
Berenson, a lawyer for Mr. Molina’s parents, said his clients were
stunned by the sentence. “Their son is paralyzed, four people are dead
and the perpetrator gets his wrists slapped,” he said. “How could they
not feel that his affluence kept him from serving time?”

Manny Fernandez reported from Houston, and John Schwartz from New York.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND

ONGOING CAMPAIGNS

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’sNew Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

The
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s
motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the
outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case”
that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal
obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way
(again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly
filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common
Pleas.

Stripped of “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013
order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon
enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence
and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth!
This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover
the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo
Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more
determined as his PA state court appeal continues.

Increased
public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s
freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The
fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others
who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA
Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo,
despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police.
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!

—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
October 25, 2013

For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY

Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:

Chelsea's supporters were awarded the title “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade

Call:
(913) 758-3600

Private
Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement
and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience.
Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with
legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing
gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years
of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a
difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope
that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it
would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after
serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most
was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved
challenging.

Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth
military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which
she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have
her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’

To
encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling
on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth
officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change
immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect
Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the
name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’
power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the
legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year.
It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request
for hormone therapy.

Call:
(913) 758-3600

Tell
them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s
identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible,
including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to
appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone
replacement therapy (HRT).”

While openly transgender
individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the
world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by
speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave
whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important
benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere.
(Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more
likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.

Earlier
this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most
“absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride
Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay
Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one
thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning
in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most
well-known whistleblower.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.

Free Lynne Stewart: Support Compassionate Release

Renowned defense
attorney Lynne Stewart, unjustly charged and convicted for the “crime”
of providing her client with a fearless defense, is dying of cancer
while imprisoned in the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Texas.

Your action now can lead to her freedom so that she
may live out her remaining days with the comfort and joy of her family
and those closest to her, including her devoted husband Ralph Poynter,
many children, grandchildren, a great grandchild and lifelong friends.

The conservative medical prognosis by the
oncologist contracted by the prison is that Lynne Stewart has but
16-months to live. Breast cancer, in remission prior to her
imprisonment, reached Stage Four more than a year ago, emerging in her
lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs.

Despite repeated courses of chemotherapy, cancer
advances in her lungs, resistant to treatment. Compounding her dire
condition, Lynne Stewart’s white blood cell count dropped so low that
she has been isolated in a prison hospital room since April 2013 to
reduce risk of generalized infection.

Under the 1984 Sentencing Act, upon a prisoner’s
request, the Bureau of Prisons can file a motion with the Court to
reduce sentences “for extraordinary and compelling reasons,” life
threatening illness foremost among these.

Lynne Stewart’s recent re-application for
compassionate release meets all the criteria specified in guidelines
issued by the Bureau of Prisons in August 2013.

These “new guidelines” followed a searing report
and testimony before Congress by the Department of Justice’s Inspector
General Michael Horowitz. His findings corroborated a definitive report
by Human Rights Watch. Inspector General Horowitz excoriated the Federal
Bureau of Prisons for the restrictive crippling of the compassionate
release program. In a 20-year period, the Bureau had released a scant
492 persons – an average of 24 a year out of a population that exceeds
220,000.

Over 30,000 people of conscience from all walks of
life in the United States and internationally took action to free Lynne
Stewart following her first application for compassionate release in
April of this year.

Among those who raised their voices are former
Attorney General Ramsey Clark – who was co-counsel in the case that led
to Lynne Stewart’s imprisonment, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former
President of the United Nations General Assembly, Father Miguel D’Escoto
Brockmann, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Ed Asner,
Daniel Berrigan, Liz McAllister Berrigan, Richard Falk, Daniel Ellsberg,
Noam Chomsky, Cornell West, Dick Gregory, Alice Walker and Bianca
Jagger.

They along with thousands of individuals and
organizations, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, the
National Lawyers Guild and Lawyers Rights Watch Canada, directed
letters, phone calls and public declarations to the Federal Bureau of
Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels, Jr. and to Attorney General Eric H.
Holder, Jr.

Dick Gregory has refused all solid food since April
4 and his remarkable moral witness will not end until Lynne Stewart is
released.

We call upon all to amplify this outpouring of
support. We ask all within our reach to convey to Bureau of Prisons
Director Samuels his obligation to approve Lynne Stewart’s application
and instruct the federal attorney to file the requisite motion for Lynne
Stewart’s compassionate release.

Please sign this new petition and
reach out to others to sign. The letter below will be sent on your
behalf via email to Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director of the Federal
Bureau of Prisons and to Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. Telephone
calls also can be made to the Bureau of Prisons:

By James Branum and Courage to Resist. November 4, 2013
Fort Carson, Colorado – Imprisoned war resister PFC Kimberly Rivera
has submitted a clemency application seeking a reduction by 45 days in
the 10 month prison sentence she received for seeking asylum in Canada
rather return to her unit in Iraq.

The request for clemency was
based on humanitarian reasons due to pregnancy. Unless clemency is
granted, Private First Class Kimberly Rivera will be forced to give
birth in prison and then immediately relinquish custody of her son while
she continues to serve the remainder of her sentence.

Unfortunately military regulations provide no provisions for her to be able to breastfeed her infant son while she is in prison.
Fort Carson Senior Commander Brigadier General Michael A. Bills will
be making a decision on PFC Rivera’s clemency request in the coming
weeks.
PFC Rivera’s case made international news when she was the first
female US soldier in the current era to flee to Canada for reasons of
conscience. After a protracted struggle through the Canadian legal
system, she was deported back to the United States in September 2012.
She was then immediately arrested and sent back to the Army to stand
trial.In an interview with Courage to Resist on the eve of her court-martial,
Rivera said, “When I saw the little girl [in Iraq] shaking in fear, in
fear of me, because of my uniform, I couldn’t fathom what she had been
through and all I saw was my little girl and I just wanted to hold her
and comfort her. But I knew I couldn’t. It broke my heart. I am against
hurting anyone… I would harm myself first. I felt this also made me a
liability to my unit and I could not let me be a reason for anyone to be
harmed—so I left... Even though I did not fill out the official
application to obtain conscientious objector status, I consider myself a
conscientious objector to all war.”
On April 29, 2013, PFC Rivera pled to charges of desertion. She was
sentenced by the military judge to fourteen months in prison, loss of
rank and pay, and a dishonorable discharge; thanks to a pre-trial
agreement her sentence was reduced to an actual sentence to ten months
of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.Kimberly Rivera has been recognized by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience.” She is the mother of four children, ages 11, 9, 4 and 2.
Kimberly Rivera’s request for clemency was accompanied by 495 letters
of support, written by family members, friends, as well as members of
Amnesty International from 19 countries.
“We have many organizations to thank for the outpouring of support
for Kimberly Rivera, including Amnesty International, Courage to Resist,
the War Resisters Support Campaign of Canada, Veterans for Peace and
Coffee Strong,” said James M. Branum, civilian defense attorney for PFC
Rivera. “We also want to recognize the tireless efforts of local
supporters in Colorado Springs and San Diego who have taken the time to
visit Kim in prison as well as to provide important support to Kim’s
family in her absence.”
While the official clemency request is now complete, supporters of
PFC Rivera are still encouraged to continue to speak out on her behalf.
Letters in support of PFC Rivera’s clemency request can be sent directly
to:

Photos: Top-Kimberly with husband Mario
during her court martial. Middle-Kimberly in Canada prior to being
deported. Bottom-Courage to Resist rallies outside Canadian Consulate,
San Francisco CA, prior to Kimberly's forced return.

Initial press release
by The Center for Conscience in Action, an Oklahoma City-based
organization dedicated to the intersection of peace, conscience and
direct action. CCA’s Legal Support Project provides low and no cost
legal representation to military service members seeking discharge on
the grounds of conscience.For more information or to schedule an interview about this
subject, please contact James M. Branum, lead defense counsel for PFC
Rivera, at 405-494-0562 or girightslawyer(at)gmail(dot)com. Consolidated
Brig Miramar generally forbids inmates from doing interviews with the
press, but you are welcome to see if an exception can be made by
contacting the Brig Public Affairs office at 858-577-7071.Additional case updates will be posted at couragetoresist.org and freekimberlyrivera.org.

DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by
the Department of Education this December when they are up for their
5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party
Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this
campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give
oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an
array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and
resources than we do.So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!

LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last
May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much
consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the
SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is
complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s
attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be
substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a
fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in
advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will
have to pay our costs.

PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:

16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"
American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California
Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on
hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety
and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to
long-term solitary confinement.
Sign the petition:
https://www.aclu.org/secure/ca-hunger-strike?emsrc=Nat_Appeal_AutologinEnabled&emissue=criminal_justice&emtype=petition&ms=eml_130719_acluaction_cahungerstrike&af=k%2FxKX1cIRdoonPVmvnAfAit8jzOCulLOnCX4AAFljff%2B%2BVOdOHNe6CKwl7glWQSjSakzXt53zF%2FodPf00T3rRHlglO3tjEA6DcMSLJRlTbfVBHAizX6uOxoSy5%2FbP93EBFj5xi6Lwm3RWHjmDOZDARHLBSl1rqTr07kLhONZrnU1UIIgPs0P%2FXQ%2BJL3reyE8%2BoiI1nlfPZPBVhbfYxUzMQ%3D%3D&etname=130719+CA+prisoners+hunger+strike&etjid=946739
In
California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more
than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's
"The Prince."

Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:

“Unless
you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by
yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a
living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my
loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being
psychologically tortured.”

That’s why over 30,000
prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state
has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for
decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their
basic conditions.

California Corrections Secretary
Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to
negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If
tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the
spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of
prisoners.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Solitary
is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture
rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in
rare occasions. Here’s why:

The majority of the 80,000
people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or
because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent
prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary
causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt
suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.

And
to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation
– their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are
being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger
strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing
this petition.

Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.

Our
criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people
fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals –
but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.

Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S.
The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their
basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary
confinement. They are:

The
statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for
his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine
specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12
other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa
O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters

Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

Occupy
Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice,
but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated
activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from
the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers
and allied activists know their rights when encountering law
enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's
booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides
invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please
click here to support the NLG.

We strongly encourage
all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also
recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265)
into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This
information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the
NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited
by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert
your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be
prepared if they are contacted as well.

You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters

What Rights Do I Have?

Whether
or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States
Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain
silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government
agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter
and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions
and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct
surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely
and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen,
the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your
political activities.

Standing Up For Free Speech

The
government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended
to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech
activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and
solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the
intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials
who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech
activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense
of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who
takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government
oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long
tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization
itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was
subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild
attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party,
the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence
movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption
tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In
1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist
organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the
extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the
settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on
the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York
University.

What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?

What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?

Do
not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any
questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her.
You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can
do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the
interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact
information or business cards and then returning inside. They should
cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for
contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney.
Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may
be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a
federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for
federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not
intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.

Do I have to answer questions?

You
have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to
refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if
you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and
unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to
consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do
not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering
law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to
remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and
maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is
one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which
require you to provide identity information or your name if you have
been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a
crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these
requirements where you reside.

Do I have to give my name?

As
above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely
refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always
follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious
or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use
your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a
crime.

Do I need a lawyer?

You have
the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer
questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if
you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have
a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect
your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer,
he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further
contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still
tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions.
Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any
investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer.
The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless
you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be
able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.

If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?

Anything
you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can
never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or
manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to
talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that
although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a
government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things
to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my
lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for
law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by
telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that
talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are
questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may
know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You
should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your
rights and refusing to answer questions.

Can agents search my home or office?

You
do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless
they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a
written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified
search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it
and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a
search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be
aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your
house if the police believe that person has the authority to give
consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace
without your permission.

What if agents have a search warrant?

If
you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the
warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched
and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not
consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant
authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are
allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what
agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If
others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what
is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your
computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the
warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking
to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer
first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform
a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in
the arrest warrant is present.)

Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?

No.
If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You
should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert
your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say
anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question
you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a
lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer
any questions.

What if I speak to government agents anyway?

Even
if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer
other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking,
stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak
to a lawyer.

What if the police stop me on the street?

Ask
if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking
away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to
go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of
your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and
dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not
consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens,
do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting
arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open
bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a
search of your bags or other property.

What if police or agents stop me in my car?

Keep
your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle,
you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of
insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may
have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do
not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each
other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.

What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?

Write
down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information.
You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find
witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek
medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can.
Call a lawyer as soon as possible.

What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?

A
grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and
testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to
threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are
going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer
to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should
consult a lawyer.

What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?

Grand
jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial.
You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in
the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each
question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities
and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this
situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to
gather information about activists and political organizations. It is
common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to
elicit information about their political views and activities and those
of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing")
subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are
suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG
National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal
defense attorney immediately.

The government regularly
uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related
to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is
aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and
disruption, discouraging continued activism.

Federal
grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is
critically important that you retain the services of an attorney,
preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable,
understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with
these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense
for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who
summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against
friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists.
Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated.
You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should
you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in
your testimony.

Frequently prosecutors will offer "use
immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your
testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a
subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of
proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the
immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use
anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information
about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.

In
front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to
remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you,
which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the
possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to
answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment
right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the
grand jury room after each question.

What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?

If
you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may
be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or
imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you
to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months,
which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold
you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a
means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt
charges.

What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?

The
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and
reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services
(BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus
will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.

?
Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign
papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never
sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the
consequences of signing it.

? Talk to a lawyer. If
possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration
lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to
understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain
your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your
attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an
immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent
residents can be barred from returning.

Based on
today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have
the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This
information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The
following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S.
Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have
all the same rights.

Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?

Yes.
You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained,
and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have
the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an
immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed
attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested,
immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal
service providers.

Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?

If
you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry
them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to
deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94,
Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that
prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do
not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime.
Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family
member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your
immigration lawyer about your specific case.

Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?

If
you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green
card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions
about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your
name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any
of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent,
then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse
to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer,
you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your
behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that
connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to
talk to the agent at all.

If I am arrested for
immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an
immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?

Yes.
In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if
you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave
the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have
criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S.
through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the
past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer
immediately to see if there is any relief for you.

Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?

Yes.
Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their
consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The
police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular
officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer
or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your
consulate.

What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?

You
could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you
could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You
should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up
your right to a hearing.

What should I do if I want to contact DHS?

Always
talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS
officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain
all of your options to you.

What Are My Rights at Airports?

IMPORTANT
NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches,
detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin,
religion, sex or ethnicity.

If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?

Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.

Can
my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no
problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?

Yes.
Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the
screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your
bags.

If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?

The
pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he
or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight.
The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of
you, not stereotypes.

What If I Am Under 18?

Do I have to answer questions?

No.
Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for
refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials,
except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been
detained.

What if I am detained?

If
you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you
normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed
against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an
adult) at no cost.

Do I have the right to express political views at school?

Public
school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically
organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as
long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate
legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your
politics, ethnicity or religion.

Can my backpack or locker be searched?

School
officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant
if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or
carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school
officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you
may face criminal charges.

Disclaimer

This
booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an
attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement
officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and
others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.

On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Fukushima Never Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU

"Fukushima,
Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns
in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco
and the Japanese government.

This is the first film
that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and
trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the
children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and
citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation
dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were
in danger.

The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then

when
the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the
government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.

It
also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was
brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and
also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO
and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews
Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who
exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was
retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the
people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and
what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the
world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for
more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks

the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.

Production Of Labor Video Project

P.O. Box 720027

San Francisco, CA 94172

www.laborvideo.org

lvpsf@laborvideo.org

For information on obtaining the video go to:

www.fukushimaneveragain.com

(415)282-1908

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1000 year of war through the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded

Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder

To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures

Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter

(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)

The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in

mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report

confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.

"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common

amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations

that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced

"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious

that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising

alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have

weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the

questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however

is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which

means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my

hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."

A Film By SBS

Distributed By Journeyman Pictures

April 2012

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.